Optimisation of material and energy exchange in an eco-park network considering three fuel sources

This work represents a quantitative assessment of the eco-park theory and its application to a case involving the export of several chemical products in addition to heat and electricity. The network is assessed in terms of environmental impact and profitability relative to existing facilities. GAMS software was employed to create the optimization problem akin to a typical transportation problem with added complexities associated with chemical processing at each node. Additionally, utilization of three different fuels as the primary source of chemical reagents and energy are considered. These fuels are coal and biomass for gasification or a steam-methane reforming process using natural gas as the fuel. The eco-park is shown to be more profitable than the comparable non-integrated set of facilities and the outputs are produced with a diminished environmental impact in terms of criteria air contaminants.